Monday morning, a man pretending to be a woman, pink hair and all, showed up at East Ridge Elementary School as a substitute teacher for first graders...FIRST GRADERS - much to the concern of other staff and a distraction to the children. The HE insisted on being called "she/her" by the staff and "Mrs." by the children. I presume this incident was calculated for effect, and maybe a legal test.
To be clear, the difference between this situation and a gender-confused parent taking a child to a bar to be "entertained" by drag queens, as some did recently, is that the parents of these first graders had no advance knowledge about this "teacher," and did not consent to their children being exposed to this gender-dysphoric indoctrination.
For the record, I believe how an adult wants to "identify" is their personal business, but it becomes all of our business when they take that identity public in order to groom young children with their identity disorder.
County school officials cautiously responded to complaints with this statement: "HCS believes its schools should be safe, welcoming and inclusive spaces for all, and we believe our schools should provide disruption-free environments that facilitate student learning. This includes an expectation that adults who interact with our students present a professional appearance that does not cause distraction. Following this morning’s situation, we have had conversations with our substitute vendor, Education Staffing Solutions (ESS), to reiterate our expectations for the appearance of adults in our schools going forward. The primary commitment of Hamilton County Schools is to our students, and we will continue to take steps to ensure we are providing them with the best educational environment we possibly can."
I suspect that inane response is related to some legal constraints about this situation. But "welcoming and inclusive" is code for woke diversity, equity and inclusion policies. And they passed the buck to the vendor?
I've seen a few virtue-signaling yard signs in front of homes occupied by affluent, suburban "white privilege" liberals, with the message: "Protect Kids Not Guns." I am all about protecting kids, and a lot of kids are protected by school resource officers with guns. However, a more directly fitting yard sign in this case would be, "Protect Kids, Not Groomers."
Mark Caldwell